By Cory Falter
What’s an 11 letter word, beginning with an “M” leaves many advertisers clueless?
Millennials. The group of young adults currently between the ages of 18-34. The group that wields over a trillion bucks in purchase power.
A generation of independent, technology obsessed, globally focused individuals who are not to be overlooked in your advertising and marketing strategy.
We get it, it’s challenging to connect with this group. First off, the millennial generation is the most populous generation yet, and trying to find general strategies to attract the entire group seems daunting (especially when they have their own language!) Secondly, they are completely embedded in the social media world, and likely know more about technology than the rest of us.
No sweat, there are plenty of general strategies you can adopt to ensure you have a better chance of garnering the attention of millennials, here are a few to consider:
STILL ADVERTISING TO MILLENNIALS? HERE ARE 5 MORE EFFECTIVE TACTICS
Go Mobile, Be Mobile, Do Everything Mobile
Attention spans are short these days, especially within the millennial group, a group that’s been used to things happening instantaneously their entire lives. If your website takes longer than 4 seconds to load then there’s a good chance your audience will lose patience and go elsewhere.
And that’s even if your website is optimized for a mobile experience. Forget about attracting millennials at all if your website isn’t mobile friendly.
The concept here is simple, the more mobile connected your business is, the easier it’ll be to connect with millennials. Keep in mind that millennials spend the bulk of their technology time on mobile devices, if you want a piece of that attention then that’s the space you want to focus on.
Drop The Linear Strategy
Back when life events happened in a linear fashion, advertising was much more simple. These days there’s no assuming the typical life pattern is along the lines of – college, marriage, home purchase, children, etc. There is no typical linear pattern for many millennials because they are living in a time where the popular thing to do is not do the popular thing… make sense? This is a group who wants to get out of town, live abroad, have adventures and feel unburdened by society.
Advertising towards specific life stages is less effective with this group. Rather, advertise to specific social groups instead. The younger audience attach themselves to specific social identities. Depending on what you’re trying to sell, target your advertisements to millennials living holistic lifestyles, or groups focused on following certain social media personalities, or even groups obsessed with being environment friendly. Those are just examples, but the idea is the same – focus on social identities and not life events.
Keep it Real, Online
This is a group that will take your blatant advertising message at face value. This is group who enjoys connecting (online at least), and finding unique, valuable and useful information. If you want their attention, you have to give something real.
There are two key factors here – millennials spend their time online, and they spend their time looking for information they want and/or need. So if you’re not advertising online, or if you’re advertising in an obvious advertising manner, then you will be overlooked by this group.
Here’s what you should do – get online. Have an Instagram account, Facebook, Twitter, a Pinterest board, and maybe even Snapchat. Use those social media channels to deploy useful, relevant and engaging content. Share your own, awesome, blogs about the best secret beaches in town or how to fit everything needed for a trip, into a carry on.
Utilize Social Media to Recruit Your Brand Spokespeople
No, we don’t mean find a specific person to pay to then tell others to stay at your hotel… or wait, do we?
Not quite, not yet. If you use a content-based advertising strategy, one that’s truly engaging, the millennials will do the rest of the work from there. This is a group that enjoys being the first to find new and rad things, places and people to follow, and will gladly share that information within their social circles. Word of mouth is the strongest advertisement there is. If the, proverbial, leaders of the millennial pack become fans of your brand, then you have accomplished an incredible feat.
The goal is for those brand influences and social media celebs to support your company and spread the word on their own, but you can also pay social influencers for their help as well.
Meet Them Where They Are, Not Where You Are
To summarize, above all else your business needs to meet the millennials where they already are, or even where they may be headed. We know millennials are mobile-focused and admire tech savviness in general.
So, go through your business and brainstorm opportunities to up your digital game. Offer concierge apps, Snapchat Filters, specialized apps, mobile check-in services, 24-hour wifi cafes, charging stations in the lobby, etc. etc.
The millennials are already digitally dialed in, are you? If you’re not, then don’t expect the 83.1 million strong millennial group to spend their time or money on you.
With these strategies in mind, advertising to millennials will get easier. The concept is simple – be mobile focused, digital-savvy, unique and real. Do those things, and the millennials might just spend 10.5 seconds checking out your brand.
But hey, 10.5 seconds is a lot of time this day in age, isn’t it?
